In the states it was christa mcauliffe. I actually heard it during that first week after the tragedy. It was definitely too soon even though as a sixth grader part of me liked the sophomoric humor. I think the fact that I watched it happen on tv as a 12 year old was why it made me uncomfortable. I don't think I told that joke until I was forty

ClavAnother wrote:In the states it was christa mcauliffe. I actually heard it during that first week after the tragedy. It was definitely too soon even though as a sixth grader part of me liked the sophomoric humor. I think the fact that I watched it happen on tv as a 12 year old was why it made me uncomfortable. I don't think I told that joke until I was forty

I saw it live.. and we told the same joke.

Growing up in Florida in the early 80's was a bit macabre. You have bits and pieces of pre disney culture all over the place, hotels that kinda had a skank lounge feel to them. You know those boomerang signs and they advertised cable tv and having a "lounge". People still performed at places like the Radisson here and you could still get cigarettes out of vending machines. And then just about everywhere was a fall out shelter.

It was really weird... when I go back home to syracuse, hardly anything has changed in 30 years.

I saw it live, too. It was surreal. Everyone else around me just stood there with their mouths hanging open. Terrible.

So... fallout shelters in Florida. How does that even work? Wouldn't they all just get flooded? Or is that not a fallout shelter...? I remember having to do the dumb "grab your legs and kiss your ass goodbye" drill only once as a kid.

No they were left over from the cold war and from the bay of pigs shenanigans. Even as late as 99-00 you could still see civil defense and "Fallout Shelter" signs on buildings like schools and USF, when I was taking classes.

We did those drills too, but they called them tornado drills.. they even did air raid siren testing, all under the "tornado" name.

When we first moved into the Fancy House, it was *right next* to a radiation siren. The San Onofre nuclear power plant was only a hop/skip/jump over the hills, but it was in the process of being shut down at the time. But they still tested the siren! Only the one time, though, after that I guess they figured there was no risk with the plant shutting down.